Upper Buskin Canyon in 1980 and 2026

 

I was going through some old photos at work and found these picture from circa 1980 of archaeologists surveying in the Upper Buskin canyon where I have been cross country skiing. The archaeologists were surveying the area prior to the construction of the Terror Lake hydro project. They were locating and identifying archaeological sites in the areas that would be impacted by the project. The Buskin River canyon is under the power lines that bring the electricity back from the dam to town - hence they needed to survey it.

It was the project that brought the notice of archaeologists back to Kodiak. Kodiak had been the locus of a lot of archaeology in the 1960's and early 1970's, but by 1980 there was not a lot of on-going archaeology. While the Terror Bay archaeologists were in town they saw amazing wood artifacts from the Karluk One site, and this piqued their interest. Eventually this lead to the Bryn Mawr College surveys and the archaeological excavations at Karluk. My introduction to Kodiak Archaeology was at the Karluk One excavation in 1985.

Anyway, because I ski up the Upper Buskin Canyon a lot I recognized exactly where the old survey photos were taken. And so earlier this week I decided to go back and take photos at the same place. Unfortunately, I did not take the actual photos with me and so had to do them from memory. I also realized later that they had about a 50mm lens on their camera and this made things look a bit different. The ones I took are a bit wider angle. 

I love the top picture of the archaeologists at work. It captures the era quite well - the shotgun in the grass, hip waders, an old school camera. I am actually sort of amazed that they got to that place and I notice that the guys pants aren't even wet. I suspect that they got dropped off in the field above the canyon by helicopter, and then hiked on down into the canyon to look for sites. A lot of the other photographs they took show the helicopter and aerial views taken from it. I am also amazed that they went up the canyon all the way to the waterfall - it is over a kilometer up river from the top photo and it is deep in places with cliffs and very rocky. Also there clearly would be no sites in the canyon. Maybe they knew this but decided it was just a cool place to explore? Or maybe the helicopter dropped them off up there too?

In any case I almost always think of them on survey so long ago when I ski past these places.

Patrick

And the other photos at the bottom of the post show how badly the ski conditions have deteriorated as the snow has sublimated in the dry air and overflow has turned to ice. We need new snow!

2026 the same view as above but just a little upriver

the waterfall in 1980

waterfall in 2026